


I was broken; now We're golden

by Crowsister



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen, Kryn Dynasty (Critical Role), Magical Theory, The Kryn Dynasty and the cracks in its veneer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 12:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30122814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowsister/pseuds/Crowsister
Summary: Essek takes a half-drow apprentice; his cousin, Nuray. Not for any noble reason, mind you, he just needs a sounding board...frankly, he doesn't have a noble bone in his body, nobility is for those less pragmatic. So what if he recognizes pieces of his own past in how she is treated...he certainly doesn'thaveto act on that.Absolutely not.Chronologically jumps a bit in the canon timeline, check chapter notes for where each bit is at.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	I was broken; now We're golden

**Author's Note:**

> The title is inspired by Juniper Vale's song, Fractions, which is like...the emotional theme song of Essek and Nuray's dynamic.
> 
> For now, I just have this little segment. I will potentially write more as more comes to me, but for now, have some fluff of Essek finding that he's not really alone in his beliefs. This is all very platonic fluff, mind you, and is set up for why Nuray eventually becomes an adventurer (before anybody asks: it's technically the Mighty Nein's fault).
> 
> Keep in mind that this is sort of backstory for my own Wildemount player character: at the moment of this being posted, she's a Level 6 Graviturgist. Her adventuring party consists of a Warforged Gunslinger, a Lizardfolk Rogue, and an Aasimar Bloodhunter.

Life, he was taught, was a gift. The Luxon embraced a dead space, imbued it with itself, and now it waits for those with sufficient wisdom through rebirth to wake it up again.

Frankly, he would’ve thought that to those more devout, more unquestioning, they would have been less suspicious of the tiny child he saw relegated to the corner every time he saw her at family gatherings. But her dark hair and rounded ears marked the circumstances of her birth, a constant reminder of Dwendalian violence. But, he had to admit, the way he’d see her take notes as she read silently in the corner (alone) spoke more towards a natural inclination for scholarship than anything else.

Essek asked himself if 106 was too young to take an apprentice. He could use a sounding board, after all.

* * *

His apprentice was a diligent girl, which saved him many a headache. And she paid attention, which preserved him from many more headaches (his peers, those who took apprentices at their age, all complained about such. Then again, Essek had a better eye and mind than all of them put together).

“Explain to me, apprentice, how magic works.”

“Magic is worked through specific drawings.”

“Diagrams, yes.”

“Yes! Diagrams. We pour magic through the diagrams, like sieves, and do hand gestures and vocal chants if needed. Directing it like a light with prisms.”

“Excellent simile, apprentice.”

And then she did the damnedest thing and _smiled_ at him. Before he could fully internally recover (externally, nothing broke his teaching poker face), she asked, “Would we yield new results if we used different diagrams with different hand gestures, sir? Such as the gestures of Mage Armor with the diagrams of Feather Fall. Or would the combination simply do nothing?”

Essek hummed, putting his knuckle to his lips. “I would guess it does nothing, but magic is mainly about intent. The way spells are written and how we replicate them through casting: it all lies in the spell-crafter’s original intent. The Message cantrip, for example, what does it require?”

“The caster to be within 120 feet of the target, the gesture of the caster pointing at the target, the whisper for the target, and a copper wire if the caster holds no arcane focus.”

“Precisely. Message is built out of its _intent_ to send a message. Compare it to Prestidigitation, which itself is entirely molded around the intent at the time of casting: the somatic components of it differ depending upon your intent.”

“Same with its verbal components, right?”

“That usually depends on the caster,” Essek answered. “Some like to be pretentious, with loud exclamations. Others simply tie it to a more practical word as their verbal component.”

His apprentice nodded quickly. “But is it possible for a caster to push through with their intent?”

“Another school entirely.” Essek waved his hand in a small circle. “There are those who are born with magic innate in them or have accidents that change their being entirely, and they tend to break the rules others, like us, have to study to understand.” He wrinkled his nose. “I think them lazy.”

He noticed she started to shuffle a bit in her seat. “Is something the matter, apprentice?”

“O-oh, um.” She looked up at him with pale yellow eyes. “It’s...well, it’s not _nothing._ ” She put down her quill, looking up at him. “At the temple, when I’m not at lessons with you, I um...I learn under Sibil Tiria. The sibil says that I ought to think first with the opinions of the Kryn because the Bright Queen represents the best of us all. But...”

Essek tilted his head at her, eyebrows rising slowly as a bit of fatigue he didn’t know he felt was melted away by a mote of warmth. “But?”

“I don’t think it’s what she would want,” his apprentice replied. “I’ve been told that she’s the kind light that represents the Luxon while it sleeps, having been there for the first of the Beacons, spearheading our peo- the drows’ peeling away from the dark influence of the Spider Queen. If she’s kind...would she want unquestioning loyalty or would she prefer a citizen that questioned, found her worthy of following, and then gave that loyalty freely?”

Essek quashed an impulse for the corners of his lips to turn up, hoping his eyes wouldn’t give him away. He pulled up a chair next to his apprentice, sitting next to her rather than standing and pacing. “How many summers are you now?”

“Thirteen, sir.”

“To many of our people,” he replied, subtly including her in where he knew others pushed her out, “that is a blink of time. They’d consider it insignificant in the grand scope of the world.” When he saw her shoulders droop, he put a hand on one of them. “I am so proud of you for learning what many have not in their long years.”

She looked up at him, eyes wide. “You-you’re not going to get mad for me asking that?”

“Stars, no,” Essek answered. “Has Sibil Tiria gotten angry with you asking questions?”

His apprentice nodded, and he mentally noted the sibil’s name down. 

“She-she said some knowledge doesn’t get to be told people like me,” she answered. “I’m not consecrated, so my not being pure drow means that I’m a threat to the Dynasty and all of the people it protects. I only get to be in Rosohna and the Temple because our Den Mother didn’t know where else to hide me.” His apprentice shuffled in her seat again, and Essek made himself look elsewhere, finally realizing his gaze was probably too intense for her right now.

“You’re not meant to be hidden, Nuray,” Essek lied. He quickly found that this one — unlike the others he’d said before — tasted sour. “Our Den Mother kept you close because you are the sole reminder she has of a sister who died outside of the reach of a Beacon.” She hoped her sister hid herself in you and wants her to replace you in two years. “She placed you in the Luxon’s Temple because she wanted you to learn in a place of light.” Her sister was a devout worshipper of the Luxon — it was to _help_ Nuray remember. “That’s why she lets me teach you: she wants you to succeed.” Hedging her bets, the old crone, if Nuray was a new soul like him, like Verin; a failure of a rebirth.

“It...it doesn’t feel like it, sometimes.”

“I know.” Essek gently pat her shoulder. “I know. For now, consider me someone you can ask any question to, alright? You can trust me. But...I would recommend limiting your trust in Sibil Tiria. You’ll find many like her, and you’re smart enough to recognize the signs of that. Be careful, even if it means you’re alone.”

He almost blinked when she put a hand on his, gently patting the one he had on her shoulder. She smiled softly at him. “But I’m not alone. At day’s end, I’ll have you, right?”

Without meaning to, he smiled softly. “That’s right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Things that might come up in the future:  
> -Nuray interacting with Verin  
> -Essek realizing he can't keep Nuray safe from the consequences of his own machinations  
> -Essek hiding Nuray's existence from the Mighty Nein and fussing about their potential influence on her  
> -Essek encouraging Nuray to become an adventurer and their physical separation (he sends her letters to her Menagerie Coast apartment and she learns Sending later)  
> -Nuray introducing Essek to Yussa (in a mini-session the day before this was posted, Nuray made friends with Yussa! So that business relationship/friendship might be a thing in our campaign, DM-willing)  
> -Nuray getting _cupcakes_ from Essek (I don't actually know, at time of writing, what and why he sent those; my DM teased them to me at the end of the mini-session)


End file.
